


Every Little Thing

by StrangelySmitten (BotanyCameos)



Category: Doctor Strange (2016)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, I didn't tag them because it's brief mentions, M/M, angst followed by fluff of sorts, mentions of Daniel Drumm, mentions of the Ancient One, not physical though (Mordo is quite depressed)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-02-25
Packaged: 2018-09-26 22:42:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9927224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BotanyCameos/pseuds/StrangelySmitten
Summary: Fill for a prompt from the Doctor Strange Kinkmeme.(Strordo dialogue prompt: "Please, don't leave...")It has both fanfic and some photos illustrating it. One of them is mildly NSFW, but nothing much. (Men kissing shirtless.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for [this prompt](https://doctorstrangekinkmeme.tumblr.com/post/157461616605/) from the **Doctor Strange Kinkmeme.**  
>  Passed after the battle of Hong Kong, but before Mordo had that "too many sorcerers" revelation and started going after them.  
> Also, the mention of something Mordo isn't aware of and which gave Stephen more experience, is because of all the time Stephen spent in the Dark Dimension dying over and over.
> 
> * * *

 

 

 

After he left at the end of the Hong Kong battle, he felt as if he’d spiraled down into an abyss of emptiness and loneliness.

He looked in the mirror and found that he did not recognize the man he’d become, the man he said she’d made him into.

If she was nothing but a lie, then what did that make him?

The many scars on his face and body all spoke of so many battles fought for Kamar Taj, and yet he no longer knew whether he believed now in what he’d fought for then. In what he’d lived by for so long.  
Everything was breaking to pieces around him, and he was sinking, like a rudderless ship in a storm.

He had sworn to no longer follow their path, but that didn’t mean he knew what path he should follow. And so during that void, those empty months he spent doing soul-searching and trying to find a purpose for himself in the world after her death, he found that he couldn’t prevent his thoughts from straying back to Stephen.

The only things he’d taken with him from Kamar Taj, were a few books, some personal effects, and a print-out of a photo he’d taken of Stephen from earlier in his training, still wearing the novice garb.

Mordo told himself he didn’t throw it away simply because it was printed on a thick cardstock that was convenient as a bookmark, but the lie was so shameful that even the lonely silence in the dim little room he was renting accused him of the worst kind of perfidy, that which is done to oneself.

He had all the money he could need, and a castle he could be living in back in Europe, but nothing felt right, and no amount of luxury would make up for it, so he found himself in that dinky little room in a drafty and poorly maintained old NY building.

The photo was the only truly warm thing in his current life.

Not even the tiny potted plant he’d set up for ritual purposes, or the honey tea he made frequently --despite the bittersweet memories that now tainted each cup, or the painful knowledge that no one, not even himself, could make that tea taste as right as the Ancient One used to-- brought him any solace, not in the way that simple photograph could. He was ashamed to admit it, but he knew that lying to himself about it was even worse.

He may not want to return to Kamar Taj, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the man, and keeping tabs on him. He was sure Stephen would get himself killed at some point, if not closely watched. Even under watch, the man was a danger to himself.

One morning as Mordo had “gone for a jog” to snoop around the Sanctum and had wandered a little too close, they nearly ran into each other.

 

Before Mordo could get away, Strange spotted him and called out his name.

Mordo’s first instinct was to ignore Stephen or deny knowing him. Pretend he was just another busy New Yorker rushing along, merely someone with a passing resemblance to the man Strange thought he saw.

Of course, it was ridiculous, and the moment after that thought crossed his mind, he hated the knowledge that the flush on his cheeks was most definitely visible to the other man as he turned around to stare him down.

Drumm had teased him for it in Kamar Taj in the past. The older man’s skin was darker than Mordo’s, and as such he had no such issues. If Drumm had ever blushed about anything in his life, that was. Mordo couldn’t picture that at all. It just brought a renewed pang of pain now.

_So many dead._

He tried his best not to think of _her_ , but the pain from the loss of the others was harder to block, because he had less excuses to be angry at them for dying and leaving him alone. Deep inside, he knew this was the truth of his anger towards the Ancient One, more than any decision she might have made as the Sorcerer Supreme.  
A part of him hated so much the knowledge that if she had lived, he would have forgiven her, for everything, Kaecilius and all. That knowledge taunted him, making him think of himself as less dedicated to his beliefs and to the natural law as he’d wanted to be, and he hated it. But on most days, he was just going through the motions, anyway. Everything felt empty.

The thought of everything and everyone that had been lost, of so many people who had felt more like family to Mordo than the real family he’d grown up with, brought a new wave of weary dejection to his heart, sapping his energy and cutting down on his urge to get away.

He missed them all so much. And he missed Stephen even more, perhaps all the more so because he knew the man was still alive, and every moment they stayed away was a wasted moment.

Mordo now only truly lived in the memories of the time they spent together, and in his constant fear that in a blink, Stephen might be gone too.

 

So instead of disappearing and making sure Stephen didn’t see him again, Mordo let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, and just stood there, letting the other man come closer. He was still considering making a hasty exit, but he was too tired, too despondent to do it just yet.

Strange approached him slowly, like someone getting close to a skittish animal they’re afraid might bolt. That thought was almost enough to anger Mordo, but the earnest concern written all over Stephen’s face mitigated the annoyance.

He was just so tired, and the direction of his thoughts only reminded him of how short life could be, and how pointless the wasted time was.

So when Stephen reached out a shaking hand towards him, in half-entreaty and half-begging, and breathed out a broken little “Don’t leave…”  
Mordo didn’t have the heart to walk away a second time.

He followed an anxious Stephen to the Sanctum, where they spoke for more than an hour over tea with honey.  
To Mordo’s staggering shock, Stephen, even with his shaking hands almost spilling the tea as he prepared it for him and served it, was able to make it taste exactly the same as it did when it was made by the Ancient One. Mordo had to fight back the tears that rose unbidden to his eyes.

He did leave, eventually, but with the promise of coming back again. He desperately needed to meditate and find balance within himself, in the wake of their talk. He found neither, just an agitated day followed by restless sleep plagued with terrible temptations, as he dreamed of Stephen over and over, and of all the unspeakable things that he secretly would have wanted to do to his former student, all night long.

Nevertheless, he returned to the Sanctum the very next day, and each day after that.

Each time, their talks lasted longer, often interspersed with tempers flaring --on Mordo’s part, at least, as they argued about things that, in his rigidity, he found unacceptable, but that he was slowly coming to grudgingly realize had been done out of inevitable lack of another choice, and for the good of the world, rather than any baser reason.  
He found Stephen surprisingly far more mature than he had been in Kamar Taj. Powerful also, and with an aura to him that spoke of experience and mastery earned over years longer than Stephen had been at Kamar Taj. It was bemusing, but it inspired respect. And while he often looked haunted by things Mordo wasn’t yet aware of, things that must have happened in the Dark Dimension, Stephen now spoke with the kind of wisdom their master used to have. It felt odd at first, but it was strangely reassuring, and Mordo found himself fighting the urge to rely on Stephen and finally rest his weary soul for a while. They may not agree on many things, but Mordo found that he couldn’t help frequently seeing validity in the other’s opinions, and respecting them.

  
He was reminded of the moment after the Ancient One’s passing, when Stephen came to look for him in Kamar Taj, before the battle in Hong Kong. Mordo had been busy falling apart in despair and loss then, and thus had been momentarily blinded by it, but he now realized that he’d seen the beginning of this change then already: His protégé had grown in his absence, beyond what he could have imagined.  
Mordo found the idea of missing any more of Stephen’s evolution increasingly abhorrent. That craving to see him grow as a sorcerer more and more, and help guide him rather than leave him to flounder in the dark, eroded his belief that he should leave the path he’d once been on.

With each conversation they had, his reluctance wore away, and his guilt over the ways of avoidance and darkness he’d been taking in the past months increased.  
He was starting to get a better picture of what had truly happened, and of how much danger there was of it being him, Mordo, who might end up falling down a slippery slope that he wouldn’t have forgiven in any other sorcerer.

It was about a month into their daily chats that he went to his rented little room for the last time.

By then, he’d already stayed over at the Sanctum two nights in the past three days, and they were spending most of the days together, immersed in debates, joint meditation, or magical practice. Leaving was becoming a mere formality. So Mordo went back that one last time just to collect his belongings.

He moved into the Sanctum that very day.

And into Stephen’s bed within a fortnight.

 

For what might have been the first time in both of their lives, they could safely say that they were truly, genuinely happy, without any external caveat or worry beyond the need to keep the world safe.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is basically just this:
> 
> Mordo, snooping around the Sanctum in the months after HK:  
> "I'm not living in NY just to keep tabs on Strange. I don't care." *blushing*  
> Photos of Stephen come spilling out of his pockets.  
> "I'm... I'm just keeping those for a friend!!"  
> He is tempted to run away screaming "THE BILL WILL COME DUE", but they both knew it already did, the bill came due for his heart, from the moment he first saw Stephen.
> 
> So they might as well embrace it. XD


End file.
